It’s a mess. We knew it was a mess but the headline grabbing aspect of the mess is around co-governance and how unpalatable that is to most of us.
Willie Jackson said as much last week. The argument has been lost, David Seymour and Christopher Luxon have successfully driven the discussion to a point where the Government doesn’t stand a chance.
So Kieran McAnulty is now in charge of, well, no one knows exactly what he is off doing, given he won't talk to us.
I assume it's dropping the co-governance part and trying to resurrect the water part.
But here's your next big hurdle, and it's what I think most of us haven't understood, who is liable? You know, for the bill.
We haven't understood because the question hasn’t been answered until now. But also, I suspect even if it had most of us haven't wandered into the weeds of this thing and got our head around it.
Some of the local bodies have, hence they’ve never liked it.
And the answer around the liability issue is now to be found in the Water Services Legislation Bill, it was stuck into Parliament just before Christmas. Remember, this whole project is covered by several bits of legislation
The answer around liability is another crime in a series of crimes.
It'll cost, by Government estimates, up to $180 billion. To borrow that you need some sort of assurance. And this is the rub - the Government wants to stick it on the ratepayer.
The Government covers none of it. Think about that.
The four water bodies simply tell lenders if it all goes wrong, we will use a property rating mechanism - in other words, you and me.
So the council have had their assets taken off them but are then put back on the hook for the debt. And you wonder why councils don’t want a bar of it.
That’s before you get to the councils that have already invested in water and carry debt because of it, those councils that don’t actually have water issues at all.
What fool unilaterally has their investment and assets removed from them, handed over to a new body, partially or not, we are yet to see, run by Māori and then the debt liability is handed back to you. On top of the fact that the pricing of the project you have no control over.
And then you, as the council, are charged with collecting the money from the punter at a price agreed to with the water authority that may or may not suit you.
Have you ever seen a more bewildering one-sided cock up of an idea?
This alone is every reason you need to get rid of the Government. They're insane.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.
6 comments:
Was any solution for payment - other than the tax payer/rate payer - ever considered by Labour ?
This is their only modus operandi - then called " government money" to redistribute to their supporters. Never clear at the start - only clear at the end when too late to correct.
Blanket repeal needed- not just 3 Waters but all laws involving co-governance.
enjoy your contributions mike keep up the good work, when people elect deluded halfwits to govern them, this is what you get
Suggest 50% be carried by the unelected iwi making all the decisions.
The entire Three - Five Waters corruption has never been about water quality.
It has always been about money and importantly ownership.
Money - to pay the owners without burden of debt for eternity.
Ownership, not of the infrastructure but of the H2O of itself.
Who owns and gets paid for the ownership of the water? The Iwi within each entity.
The taxpayer and the ratepayer get stuck with every bill and or debt load whilst Iwi profit with no care nor any responsibility.
This is not a clever scheme, it is a devious, corrupt and a fraudulent one run by a few Iwi elite that stand to gain both in their tribal mana but more importantly their personal back pockets.
Well let's not beat about the bush. What is 3 waters and Co Governance?
Handing an open cheque book to the maori elite whom can spend,spend,spend and the Taxpayer has to keep paying the bill.
The worst of it is, you can't take the cheque book away, you can't vote them out, they are a law unto themselves.
The Economists and bankers know what the outcome will be, a debt ridden society who can't pay the bill.
NZ dollar debt now priced at very high levels, NZ currency collapsed.
Once the population workout that they are on the hook for the debt, what do you think the outcome will be?
Huge outflows of people from NZ.
Who ever dreamed this rubbish up needs to be shot with a ball of their own shit, it's bonkers!
We are now in the middle of a natural disaster and water is right at the heart of the problem.
With so much infrastructure needing to be replaced and repaired a clear accountable system needs to be in place to enable this to happen.
At the moment this is Councils.
It's not perfect, nothing is, but at least it works.
Now lets replace all that we have with a co-governance.
Who is responsible for making the decisions?
No taxation without representation. If people are not represented on their local elected council then they shouldn't have to pay for unelected peoples bad decisions.
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